Wonkity wonk — known as “Howdy Doody” among the House office staffers. He’s the third ranking Republican in the House, a buddy of Jeb Bush and the Florida Gang, so know him by the company he keeps. He’s spent a lot of time learning procedure, doing the congressional equivalent of rewriting the tech manual through his work on the House Rules Committee — boring, keeping your nose clean work that prepares him to be a House minority or majority leader sometime in the future. He’s rank and file in his voting record (nothing more extreme than the standard party line) and pretty much makes it his business to know everybody and show up for all the votes. (He’s missed only 3% of his votes in the last term, which makes him a stand-out for TCB.) He junkets a lot, has a rep for liking to party on other people’s money that might get him in trouble as the years go by. He is tight with lobbyists in insurance, oil, big Pharma — he’s also, as you know, on Ag and Finance committees, so he’s taking buckets of money from ethanol and Wall Street backers. (He’s taken almost $500K this year from financial lobbyists for his reelection campaign.) In exchange, he’s been a leading proponent of deregulation. Perhaps his most significant job — and one might say his most significant failing — is as head of the House Republican Caucus. He’s supposed to be the guy formulating the message — and when he says things like golden parachutes for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac execs are “symbolic issues,” I think that’s where we get a big disconnect with the American people. Still, he’s probably going to be re-elected in a walk. DCCC isn’t putting any money into his challenger’s campaign.